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2018: CLIMATE AS ARTIFACT - KLIMAAT ALS MENSENWERK... will it be an exhibition, a public program, a festival, a new collective.....?

Climate as Artifact is an exhibition program that targets at how redefining climate as a cultural artifact through artistic practice helps us to break free from conventional attitudes in order to establish new and essential perspectives. Climate as Artifact will bring together artists, designers, scientists and society to rethink our perceptions of culture and nature.

Now that people all around the world are slowly starting to rethink how people and planet are interrelated, new questions arise around the understanding of time and the perception of place. It’s not merely a technical or political challenge that we are facing. It’s a cultural one.

Our expanding cities have been named people’s largest artifact. But it was the Dutch landscape architect and emeritus professor Dirk Sijmons, who recently wondered whether by now the climate might be our biggest artifact. Defining people as nature and the climate as an artifact could just be a philosophical or linguistic exercise. It is what brought us to the question ‘who is nature?’ Redefining these concepts through art could be an essential task though, for this requires an intensive and constructive use of people’s sensitivity and imagination. Visual narratives and artistic actions that invite the public to go outside their ‘comfort zones’ and perceive the world with a critical but open mind, could cause these valuable sparks that make a lasting impression. It helps us to bring abstract concepts or things that are seemingly beyond our control, closer to ourselves. Climate is a hyper object. We know that it exists, but we can’t comprehend it, as the British philosopher Timothy Morton stated. Materializing ideas through art and redefining climate as an artifact, as something we make, helps to increase our sensitivity and to see connections within the natural world and between our actions and our environment.

Curious? Follow our newsletter and social media or join the upcoming preview at Electriciteitsfabriek on September 8 during DCR Pleinfestival and parallel Circus in het Gras on September 7-8-9.

2018: PRE-PROGRAM 'WHO IS NATURE?'
Starting January 2018 we launched the question 'Who is nature?'
& developed the pre-program to introduce the artists and designers & their research, questions and fascinations to share with each other, with scientists and the public.

Image: Zeelab#2 'Climate as Game Changer' during Border Sessions The Hague.

Expedition Zandmotor#13: Innovatory Heritage
Hosted by The Centre for Global Heritage and Development, Leiden University, Erasmus University, the Design & History research group at TU Delft, and the VU Amsterdam research institute CLUE+, with special thanks to Blow Beach House.

We started the education programwith 75 pupils of Technasium Maris College The Hague to discover if climate change is (allready) present in our daily environments.

Kusthal Kijkduin, a warehouse at the seaside as temporary art workspace & learning environment & Expedition Zandmotor#14 with pupils Technasium, with special thanks to Hoogheemraadschap Delfland and St. Ark

Zeelab#2: Climate as Game Changer during Border Sessions Labs in The Hague
With artists Onkruidenier (Jonmar van Vlijmen en Ronald Boer), Marit Mihklepp en Masha Ru, designer Thijs de Zeeuw. In dialogue with Mans Schepers (archeo botanist, archeologist, RUG), Harrie van der Haagen (ecologist Dunea) and Jan de Graaf (urbanist, sea expert).
& we wrote a motion on behalf of the North Sea for parallel lab 'Ambassy of the North Sea' (Dutch Only)

Gave a talk 'The Culture of Nature' at ISISA Islands of the World Conference 2018 conference, at Terschelling hosted by Waddenacademie

Gave a talk 'Who is Nature?' during Viscous Space North Sea conference at TU Delft, hosted by Centre for Global Heritage and Development en History of Architecture and Urban Planning)
& wrote an article 'Who is Nature?' for Viscous Space North Sea (TU Delft)

We are part of the international exchange program called 'Sources & Resources’ Terschelling (NL) -Praputnjak (Croatia) as part of Tandem Fryslan, hosted by ECF and MidOst, LF2018 & more
& gave a talk 'There is never one story to tell' at Rijeka, EU Cultural Capital 2020

We participate in Exploded View, hosted by Zone2Source and VU-CLUE+ Amsterdam
& gave a talk 'Who is heritage?' at VU Amsterdam.